Carter v. Carter

Citations

• 62 Ill. 439

Syllabus

<p>1. Divorce—desertion. Where the wife has absented herself from the house of her husband for more than two years before suit is brought for divorce, she must show, by a preponderance of evidence, that she was justified in so absenting herself, in order to prevent her husband from obtaining a divorce for such cause.</p> <p>2. Same—conduct justifying desertion. To justify a wife in leaving her husband, and absenting herself without giving him cause for divorce after the statutory period, it seems that his conduct must have been such as to authorize a divorce in her favor.</p> <p>3. Same—cruelly. On the trial of a bill by the husband, and cross bill by the wife, for divorce, where the husband relied on desertion for the space of two years, and the wife charged him with extreme and repeated cruelty, and adultery, it appeared that the husband had made demonstrations of personal violence when highly excited by great provocation and wanton insult on the part of the wife, but committed no personal violence in fact; and it also appeared that the wife provoked the difficulty as a pretext for separation, and that the husband was a man of good disposition, a good citizen, and truthful: Held, that in view of the provocation, the acts of the husband were not such extreme cruelty as to entitle the wife to a divorce, or justify her abandonment of her husband.</p> <p>4. Adultery—proof of. A husband, after his wife left him, employed a widow woman to keep house for him, and, to avoid scandal, kept during the time a hired girl in the house, and it appeared that such help was necessary to enable him to carry on his farm. The wife, in a suit for divorce, attempted to prove that the widow’s character for chastity was bad, to show that her husband was guilty of adultery with this woman, but no improper acts between them were proved : Held, that evidence of the general character of such widow was inadmissible to prove adultery ; and that if her character had been shown to be bad, her emp